14 OKHAMANDAL MARINE ZOOLOGY PART II 



Paundra, Devadatta, Anantavijaya, Sughosha and Manipushpaka. Paundra appears 

 to have been named from Pundra, a demon killed by Bhima ; the others signify re- 

 spectively God-given, Eternal Victory, Sweet Voice or Honey-tone, and Jewel-blossom. 

 Here too we hear for the first time the name Panchajanya given to the conch of 

 Krishna, King of the Yadavas, who had espoused the Pandavan cause. Around this 

 famous shell many legends have gathered and now we see it held on high in most figures 

 of Vishnu, who is considered by Hindus to have been re-incarnated in Krishna, the wise 

 and good king of the Yadavas. According to one legend Panchajanya was originally 

 the shell home of a terrible marine demon, Panchajana, so named as he was a foe to 

 the five kinds of beings (jana), to wit, gods, men, gandharvas, serpents and ghosts or 

 non-incorporated spirits. Panchajana lived on the sea bottom and at last filled the 

 measure of his misdeeds by seizing the son of Sandipani, who had taught Krishna the 

 use of arms. The God, fearless of consequences, rushed to the help of the child, 

 assuming the form of a fish ; after a terrible struggle he vanquished the demon and 

 brought away his shell as a trophy, since accounted one of the emblems of Vishnu and 

 Krishna. 



Tod, the author of the famous Annals of Rajasthan, in his " Travels in Western 

 India," published 1839, in describing his visit to Dwarka and its neighbourhood gives 

 a variant of this story and as the passage is most interesting no apology is needed for its 

 reproduction in full. Under date January 1, 1823, he writes, " Crossed over to the 

 Pirates' isle, emphatically called Bate, or ' the island/ but in the classic traditions of 

 the Hindu, Sankhodwara, or ' the door of the shell/ one of the most sacred spots of his 

 faith. It was here that Crishna 1 or Kanya acted the part of the Pythian Apollo, and 

 redeemed the sacred books, slaying his hydra foe, Takshac, who had purloined and con- 

 cealed them in one of those gigantic shells whence the island has its name. The whole 

 history of Kanya, or Crishna, who assumed the form of Vishnu, is allegorical, but neither 

 devoid of interest nor incapable of solution. There is no part of their mythology more 

 easy of illustration than this, which is allusive to the sectarian warfare carried on at 

 this period between the new sect of Vishnu vites and the more ancient one of Budha. 

 The races who supported the religion of Crishna are typified under his emblem, Garuda, 

 or the eagle ; while their wily adversary, the Budhist, is figured by the Tacshac, 

 Naga, or serpent, a denomination given to the races of northern origin, which at 

 various periods overran India, and of which were Taksiles (the friend of Alexander, 

 the site of whose capital is still preserved in the Memoirs of Baber) and the still more 

 famed Tacshac Salivahan, the foe of Vikrama. In the legend of the Yadu (Yadava) 

 prince, Crishna (himself a seceder from the faith of Budha Trivicrama to that of 

 Vishnu, if not its founder), receiving the sacred volumes from his hydra foe at this 



1 Tod notes " Kanya, or Vishnu, resembles the sun-god of the Egyptians in name as well as 

 symbols. Kan was one name of the sun in Egypt, and his eagle-head is a well-known type." With 

 regard to the extract given in the text, it has to be remembered that Tod's mythological explanations 

 are not always reliable. 



